


Borders

by StAnni



Category: Gotham (TV)
Genre: Angst, Established Relationship, F/M, Heroes to Villains, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-07
Updated: 2018-11-07
Packaged: 2019-08-20 03:08:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,128
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16547693
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/StAnni/pseuds/StAnni
Summary: He expected that at some point, some far future away, some cataclysmic event, would tear them apart.  He expected more time with her, he expected more nights with her, pulling her to him – he expected so much more with her.





	Borders

He leaves the balcony doors unlocked for her, as he always does. A good three hours after he had asked to meet her, she steps inside – quiet, slow. She is careful.

As he gets up from his desk, walk around to stand near her she glances at him.  
“You’re going to ruin your eyes, sitting in the dark like that.” Her tone is light but she doesn’t step closer and her eyes are sharp, on everything at once. He has not been to the roof in a week, he hasn’t called her. He knows that she is unsure, vulnerable. 

So he doesn’t move – not wanting her to run. “I thought you weren’t coming.”  
She shrugs, still on edge. “I almost didn’t. Seeing as you’re bestie-ing it up with the GCPD these days. And now, I hear there’s a warrant out for me.”

So she knows he met with Gordon. They are going to get right down to it.

He takes a breath, he has considered all the angles, all the ways he can convince her to turn herself in – nothing seemed viable. So he simply says it.  
“You killed four people in the explosion on the bridge. You have to talk to Gordon.”

Her eyes narrow for a second, possibly taken aback by his straightforward proposition.  
“Remember why I had to blow that bridge, Bruce? That some serious selective memory loss you have going on.”

She blew the bridge to stop Jeremiah from getting to Bruce when he was out cold, hog –tied on the island like a sick Christmas present for the naughtiest boy in Gotham. She blew the bridge to save his life. He knows that. He didn’t ask her to, he would never have asked her to – had he known about the family of four trying to flee the island back to the mainland across the bridge.

“Four people died, Selina. Innocent people. A family.”  
He doesn’t want to, can see the defensiveness rise in her, her shoulders stiffening, but he needs drive the point home. She needs to understand.

She stares at him, as if he is insane, and she bites it out “I.Did.It.For.You.”  
Her lash of anger wakes up that part of him that will always challenge a cheap justification, and his words are quick, cold “It doesn’t matter.”

Exasperated she runs her hand through her curls – “It matters to me, you matter to me. Look around you Bruce, it’s been two years of mayhem! All that counts out there is loyalty, and my loyalty is to you!”

It has indeed been two hard years of chaos. And in those two years they have found each other as allies, as confidants and finally as comfort. Neither of them have ever used the word “love” – there is no place for love in the world that they live in -but loyalty is as close to love as it will get.

But it doesn’t change the hard truth – that if she knew about that family, if she set off the bomb regardless – those deaths are not just on her, they are on Bruce as well, and he cannot live with that.

Watching his face, seeing his eyes betray his conflict, she closes the distance between them and then her soft hands are on his neck, her eyes, pleading and deadly green, on his. At her contact his mind swims – his heart constricts.  
“I had to do it, Bruce. You have to get that. You may not have done the same thing, I know, but it was the only way for me.”

The biggest difference between them – apart from the glaring obvious – is their sense of priority.   
Selina has accepted that to Bruce, his first priority will always be to help the people of Gotham. He knows, through bitter arguments, tearful confessions and breathless embraces – that her only priority is him. Only him.

“Selina…”  
She takes her hands away, the air is cool where her warm palms touched his skin. His voice is quiet as he takes her hands in his.  
“Did you know?”  
She looks away from his eyes and pulls her hands from his hold, taking a few step back and turns, anger and guilt warring in her eyes.  
“If I knew. Is that it? I’m out? You throw me away?”

He breathes – “throw me away”- his Selina, always so certain she is going to be left behind, tossed aside.  
And he has been struggling with the possible consequences of that answer since Gordon told him about the burnt remains of the family on the bridge. Despite the fact that he has not admitted it to her, a life without Selina doesn’t seem like a life at all. 

But if she knew…

He has to be honest, that is the one compromise he cannot make -“If you knew, Selina…then you have to give yourself in. You have to. If you don’t…then I can’t help you”

Disappointment and hurt flashes across her face and then quickly turn to searing anger as he shoves him harshly back. “So I should have just left you? I should have just let Jeremiah kill you?”  
Frustrated he meets her deflection right on, towering against her – his patience rapidly dwindling “I would never, ever have asked you sacrifice anyone for me, Selina! You know that! Now you cast that shadow on me to and I don’t deserve it!”  
She hisses back without missing a beat, ready, as always, to fight – and a fight between them, not being new territory by a long shot - “Well, tough, Bruce. It’s done. And screw you, I’m not going to jail for it!”

She tries takes a step back as he grabs her arm, pulling her close to him – her eyes, defiant – glaring up at his. “Selina, it’s either you do this of your own volition, or I will come after you Selina, I will take you in myself.”

She yanks free and he lets go roughly. 

“Another ultimatum, Bruce?”  
He breathes “You have a day. Selina. Please.”

Neither of them say anything for a slow and aching minute – lines having been drawn between them. 

She finally looks at him, betrayed and more hurt than he has ever seen her.   
His heart is heavy, thudding dully at his chest. 

He expected that at some point, some far future away, some cataclysmic event, would tear them apart. He expected more time with her, he expected more nights with her, pulling her to him – he expected so much more with her. 

“So it’s over. Us?”

Her voice is sharp – a whip. As if she expects him to take it back. But he can’t. 

The end was never supposed to be this blunt, this personal, this ugly. 

His heart empties, bitterly, painfully. 

“Yes.”


End file.
